


Raving Ones

by literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Dream Bubbles, Gen, Paradox Space, Surreal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2019-12-30 17:56:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18320342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte/pseuds/literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte
Summary: On the beach maybe a thousand girls were dancing.My piece for the Feferi zine which you candownload here.





	Raving Ones

And you woke up. 

The cold tongue of saltwater lapped your lower half, legs half-submerged in the sand. Strange pink foam filled the hole in your chest, and with every breath, it thickened and turned dark as a sweet clot. When you stood up, you felt your cracked ribs rearranging themselves back into place. Part of your spine was gone, but you rose without any effort.

Hair floated around your head as if you were charged with an archaic power, and black tendrils of it curled in the driftwood a few feet away, seeking a warm crevice in the manner of a proboscis. Little crabs moved like lice over your scalp, and their claws became teeth for your hair. Nothing was capable of hurting you anymore.

You could feel it then, the weight of your body and the wound. The wind passed through you the way water ran through your gills, and nausea churned where your stomach should be. Otherwise, you were fine. A dull pain throbbed behind your eyes, but that was because of the music.

It wasn't really music - just instruments in cacophony, trumpets and drums and flutes. And laughter. On the beach maybe a thousand girls were dancing. Not a single man or an unfamiliar face. There you were at three sweeps, skipping with yourself at five. Younger witches guided older ones by the hand around bonfires or through tide pools. Their scales glimmered like drops of blood in the night.

Some of them were naked, adorned with jewelry like real empresses with three-tier tiaras made from the chitin of horns. Others wore hoop earrings, plastic beads, golden and bronze bracelets stacked together. A dozen girls walked around bare-chested, and their long skirts unfurled like octopus limbs when they twirled, sandals imprinting their frenzy in the soft damp sand. There were a few girls hidden by veils, phthalo green and blue fabric as light as the wind trying to snatch it away. Beneath the veils their faces were streaked with ash. The lucky ones had wings with pink veins under the gossamer surface, somehow strong enough to support them as they swooped in the air and over the fires.

Their music had no rhythm, only endless passion. Bassoons and harps and cymbals. Crashing and booming and crooning like storms at sea. The girls delighted in their hundreds, in the sweat drenched shine of their oiled grey skin blending together like smeared paint. Ankles flashed and arms waved and hair grew and grew and grew. All these dead girls sang and laughed and danced in the tropical weather under silverfish clouds.

They played in the shipwreck across the beach, swinging from the crow’s nest and jumping over the wine-dark abyss between wooden planks. Like elephant seals slapping their bellies, they clapped their hands together and screeched with delight. On the crowded deck, big girls with even bigger horns and seashells behind their ears broke coconuts apart and poured the milk over themselves. They weren't drinking. Unsmiling, they bared their teeth and stared wide-eyed as the milk coated them in a second skin. Little girls with sharp teeth cracked open lobsters and ate them raw, shoving the pink-white meat piece by piece into their mouths.

When they popped the hollow fronds of seaweed, ribbons of opaque black air released and honey covered their webbed toes. They giggled and popped more bubbles. Everywhere it was dark except for the smoke, the flames, the whiteness of their teeth and eyes. Girls tossed their heads back, hooting and howling and ripping death itself apart. You were among them now, deep in the heart.

Flowers bloomed in rainbow colors, opening towards you in bright shark fins of poison. Shadows of palm trees turned into iridescent fish and swam away. Braids of hair threaded over the stars and eventually threatened to swallow the moon, that lone harpoon stuck in the whale’s white belly.

You were gods. You knelt before the ocean and it prayed to your name. Years came and went. Time reversed until you were a grub again, squirming in the arms of an ancient Peixes matriarch. Seconds later, your hair spiraled in blue-black circlets and your horns pierced the sky. Cracks spread like hands reaching across the darkness. When they touched, lightning flashed at their fingertips and girls screamed with the echoes of thunder.

The world ended twice and the beach remained.

**Author's Note:**

> This will be my last HS fic probably for a long while. I didn't write about it for years, suddenly remembered all my love, and now that love's going dormant again. I mean, it will always be there. My [sideblog](https://dersenet.tumblr.com/) might update every once in a while but I don't really feel like making content for HS anymore.
> 
> It's been fun.


End file.
